


Believe That We Might

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family Feels, Murder Mystery, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since she reached out to meet her birth parents, ever since she developed a crush on one of her oldest friends, Genevieve Trevelyan has felt unstable in her own life. A big insurance fraud case seems like the best way to think about something else, but Krem is her partner on the case, and she keeps running into her birth parents, and something isn't quite right about an open-and-shut investigation, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe That We Might

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang, for the art created by cullensbooty on tumblr! I had a great time writing in someone else's sandbox, while writing an AU scenario I have been dying to do for a loooong time :D

The bells at St. Christopher’s rang nine o’clock as Genevieve swung through the door, her curls bouncing and one hand curled around her coffee. She flashed a smile to Harding over a cubicle wall on her way to her own desk, but she didn’t stop until she’d made it there. 

“Good morning,” she said, dropping her bag, jacket, and coffee on the desk with a dramatic thump. 

“Right on time, I see.” The voice behind her was tinged with amusement, and Genevieve recognized it without turning around. She flipped up her middle finger over her shoulder, tugging her laptop out of her shoulderbag and setting it on one of the few open spaces on her desk. The rest was covered with papers, photo prints, notes on various cases, and some reports she’d surely meant to hand off to Bull by now. 

“I’m always on time,” she retorted, but she turned toward Krem with a grin while her computer booted up, just in time to catch the file he thrust into her hands. 

He grinned back at her, his eyebrow cocked upward. “If you’d been earlier, you’d have gotten dibs on a good assignment.”

Genevieve groaned, turning the folder over in her hands so she could open it. “I thought Bull was waiting until ten-thirty for case assignments.” 

“Only losers count on the chief holding meetings that late in the day—ow!” Genevieve rapped the back of her hand on his shoulder as she finally opened the file, scanning the front page. 

_suspicious fire, suspected criminal activity, collect evidence—_ Genevieve smacked him again, rolling her eyes. 

“Sneak! You wanted me to think I was doing database searches!” 

Krem laughed then, folding his arms and leaning against the opening to her cubicle. His grin was broad, but Genevieve flopped into her chair and turned to her computer. “And you would have done, if I hadn’t volunteered you to help me with this case.”

“So, you want me to be grateful?” She shot him a dirty look over her shoulder and pulled up her email, waving him off with an absent gesture. “Go away and let me work. _I_ haven’t had the chance to read through the file, and I bet the chief’s already scheduled our first interview with the client.”

“It’s at thirteen-hundred. Don’t be late.” Krem disappeared around the corner with a wave, but Genevieve had already turned her attentions away from him. 

She flipped ahead through the file, checking the background information that had been provided by the client while absently deleting emails in her inbox. She barely looked up at the screen until the header of one caught her attention and she immediately dropped the pages she’d been reading from.

From: Cullen Rutherford, Capt  
To: Genevieve Trevelyan  
Subject: Dinner?

Genevieve frowned at the screen for a few long seconds, but the words on the screen didn’t reorder themselves. She’d been adopted by the Trevelyans, an upstanding family in the city that was loving, if often formal and stiff. What little she knew about her birth parents was that they were a pair of teenagers who got in trouble, and who went on to perfectly normal lives after she was adopted. That hadn’t bothered her, even in her tumultuous teenage years. Bann and Evanna were even supportive when Genevieve came home from college and told them she wanted to meet her birth parents. And so she had. 

Maybe it would have been easier if she hadn’t interned under Captain Rutherford at the police department for her practicum. Maybe if they’d been complete strangers when she met them, if they’d been… Well, Genevieve didn’t know what she wanted them to be. They were lovely people, Cullen and Hayden, but… 

She cleared her throat and marked the email for later. It was all too new, the emotions around their reunion too raw. Genevieve had avoided them and their too-casual invitations for weeks, waiting to feel more comfortable with—with their put-together lives and eagerness for her acceptance. Even now, seeing Captain Rutherford’s name on her screen gave her a prickle of discomfort. 

When Genevieve looked back down at her file, her eyes couldn’t focus properly.

Well, so _what_ if they wanted her for dinner? To meet her baby sister and eat pasta and be a family? That wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get to know them, see the life they had now, it was just that she didn’t know where she fit into it when they were already so complete as they were.

Savagely, she pulled a pair of glossy photos from the file. Insurance investigations were common enough, but they were a sight better than the basic database searches and information requests Genevieve had done for four solid months before Bull put her on a proper case. This one actually looked exciting, and it wasn’t long before she’d yanked out a notepad and started taking sloppy notes on her observations. 

By the time Krem came back by her desk at ten to one, the surface was plastered in neon sticky notes, each scribbled with some thought or another in Genevieve’s illegible scrawl. He stood back, taking in the sight, and whistled lowly.

“Wow.”

“Not a word,” Genevieve warned, scribbling one last note to herself before she swiped up her notepad and brushed her wild curls back from her face. “I’m ready.”

“After you.” Krem didn’t bother hiding his grin, sweeping an arm out for her dramatically. “I think the chief’s sitting in on this one.”

That meant business, Genevieve thought, and straightened immediately. Sure enough, Bull sat at the head of the table with a somber expression—the kind he got when he was trying to ponder over a particularly difficult case. Or, if their client was particularly difficult. Either way, Genevieve followed suit, wiping any remaining traces of a smile from her face just before she sat down. Krem took the seat next to her, and Bull leaned over toward them.

“I’m sure you two have got this handled,” he said in a low voice and winked with his good eye. “Pretend I’m not even here.”

“Easy for you to say, Chief,” Krem muttered, pulling a notepad toward himself and testing his pen out in the corner. “It’s only the boss observing a client interview.”

“It’s important,” Bull answered, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back, his feet stretched out. “The insurance company is calling us in because they’re concerned it’s arson. They’ve got a big payout riding on this policy. Policyholder’s husband died in the fire, structure is a burnt out ruin now, and they’re balking.”

Genevieve cleared her throat, flipping open the file again. “Don’t they have investigators on staff to figure that out? Or the police, if they suspect foul play?”

Bull grunted. “Well, then, they’re not very good. Or it’s a tough case to crack. Either way, the police investigation wasn’t to their satisfaction, and they’re here to see what we can do for them.”

“Cleaning up after cops,” Krem groaned. “Looking for evidence is going to be terrible with all the police department tromping through.” 

“I have faith in you,” Bull said, steepling his fingers and resting his hands on his chest with the same serious expression from before. “They’ll be here any minute. Don’t forget—”

“Be professional,” Genevieve cut in, half a second before Krem did the same. She grinned up at him and winked back to Bull. “We got it.”

*

It was after five by the time she and Krem wrapped up their planning meeting, presented it to Bull for approval, and agreed to meet the next morning a few blocks away from the site of the fire. Genevieve came back to her desk and stared down at her email inbox, and Captain Rutherford’s email, one last time before shrugging her bag onto her shoulder.

After she’d started toward the door, Genevieve reconsidered for a moment. They’d need some other background information for the investigation, and she _hated_ desk work. She sighed and headed for the section of the office where the cyber investigators worked. The head of the division, Revas Lavellan, sat stiff-backed behind her desk, reading glasses dangling in one hand as she stared at her computer screen. When Genevieve knocked on the doorframe, she looked up with a clear, peaceful smile.

“What a surprise,” Revas greeted, setting her glasses aside on the desk. “I heard that you and Krem are working a big insurance investigation.”

“Nothing escapes you.” Genevieve dropped into the chair opposite her desk, her bag sliding to the floor next to her. “That’s what I’m here about, actually.”

Revas straightened a few papers on her desk and dropped them into a tray nearby. “I’m all ears, then.” 

Genevieve pulled out her dog-eared notes and set them over her knees, flipping through until she found the page she was looking for and handed it over. “Mrs. Maeve Frank, owner of the Ostburn Tower, widow of the recently late Gordon Frank. If you can take a look at her assets, public records, the usual.”

Revas turned the page on its side, her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of Genevieve’s scribbled handwriting. Genevieve blushed lightly, but Revas only slipped her glasses back on and peered down at the page. 

“This was all over the news a month back? Husband died in the fire, weeping widow on the news?” When she looked back up, Genevieve was struck at the hawkish impression she gave, with all the sharp angles of her face. She cleared her throat and nodded.

“The same. The insurance company wants an independent confirmation of the police investigation.” At the continued stare Revas levelled on her, Genevieve quickly added, “There’s a big payout involved.” 

“Money,” Revas sighed, setting the paper to the side. “Of course. I’ll see what I can dig up from the public records and get back to you.”

“You’re the greatest,” Genevieve sighed, jumping up to her feet with more gusto than she really needed. “I hate database searches.”

Revas flashed a faintly amused smile up at her and gave her a gentle wave. “Lucky you, I don’t prefer stomping around on stakeouts. I’ll see you in the morning, Genevieve. Give Krem my… fondest regards.” 

A hot blush turned Genevieve’s face and neck scarlet under her freckles and she turned away and fled with a wave. Everyone knew she and Krem had been friends since—well, since _forever_ , as far as she could figure. She was also beginning to suspect that _everyone_ knew that she’d started looking at Krem a little differently, though she’d been very subtle about it. 

Her face didn’t begin to cool until she was already a couple of blocks over. Genevieve jammed her hands into her pockets and looked out at the late afternoon sky, the sun beginning to set over the ocean, and a sweet-smelling sea breeze carrying the sounds of the city toward her. Home, she thought, with a wistful stab. She’d lived in Ostwick her whole life. Everything she knew—or, rather, thought she knew—was tied up in this city.

When Genevieve was younger, she daydreamed about adventures that would take her all over the world, that her birth parents lived in some far-off place, and that was why she’d never met them, and she’d meet some handsome stranger to sweep her off her feet. The reality, that she’d gone away, only to come back home and find the place she’d known as a child to be a little different, darker than she remembered. Her birth parents weren’t living far away, they’d been in Ostwick the whole time, moving back toward each other and finally getting married only a few short years before Genevieve decided to find them again. And the handsome stranger—well, that brought a small grin to Genevieve’s face. Krem was far from a fantasy stranger, but that didn’t seem to matter to her as much as it seemed it might a few short years ago. 

Though, when exactly had she started looking at him differently? Probably sometime when she came home from college and found that Cremisius Aclassi was taller, broader, _handsomer_ than the skinny teenager she’d left behind in Ostwick. And that nothing—absolutely nothing—of their old camaraderie had been lost to time and change, either. 

Genevieve was so lost in her thoughts that she walked past her bus stop and was halfway back to her apartment before she looked up again. A little embarrassed, she straightened her back and resolved to stay focused for the rest of the walk. She hurried her steps, shifting her bag on her shoulders, when she heard a call from behind her. 

“Genevieve?” 

Several seconds passed while she stopped and turned before she recognized the voice as Hayden Amell’s. Genevieve tried to hide her stricken expression, but as Hayden caught up to her, she was uncomfortably aware of how she must look to her. Her _mother,_ she thought with a sudden jolt. 

“Hayden,” she greeted weakly, shuffling in place nervously. What if Hayden knew about the dinner invitation? Surely she did, Genevieve had dodged it and others like it for almost two months now. For all she thought she’d been ready for this…

“I didn’t expect you,” she finally managed out with a squeak. Hayden seemed to relax, though, and she offered her a warming kind of smile, the kind that didn’t come with any expectations attached to it. 

“I’m not usually this far out toward the beach,” Hayden admitted, tucking her hair back behind her ear. Genevieve found herself staring openly at her, tracing the lines of her freckles across her face from one familiar feature to another. She looked down at her shoes quickly, then forced herself to look back up while Hayden continued. 

“But I had an appointment out here. I didn’t realize that you—” There was a question implied at the end of her sentence; a lifting curl to the last syllable. 

“My apartment isn’t far from here,” Genevieve blurted. “I missed the bus stop, I had a lot I was thinking about, and I just thought I might… keep walking.” She stumbled over the last few words, and was relieved when she fell silent. 

Hayden nodded slowly, as if nothing was particularly unusual about the way Genevieve presented herself. She stepped to the side of the walk to allow another person to pass them by, and Genevieve went back to looking at her shoes. 

“I’m headed this way, if you don’t mind the interruption to your thoughts.” Hayden held out a hand ahead of them, and Genevieve turned back the way she’d been going before. 

They walked in silence for a while, but it turned quickly from awkward to companionable, and Genevieve thought she rather liked this, that Hayden didn’t ask too many questions. If she had hopes for what her relationship with Genevieve might be, Hayden did well to mask it. On the other hand, Cullen seemed to vibrate with all his regrets and hopes and wishes for Genevieve, because he wore his every last emotion openly and earnestly, so much the same way that she herself did. The thought made her squirm a little. Things she’d thought she’d inherited from her upbringing, even learned from her adoptive parents, seemed so effortlessly explained by her birth parents. 

“I thought I might call you soon,” Hayden offered suddenly, in a welcome break from her thoughts. “Cullen’s been pushing to have dinner, but I thought it might be…”

A dam broke in Genevieve’s chest. She laughed a little with relief and over toward Hayden. 

“Overwhelming,” she suggested, and immediately wondered if Hayden would think she was being rude, or inconsiderate with her feelings. “It’s a lot to take in.”

Hayden’s bright eyes, blue like the sky on the horizon, softened when she looked over Genevieve’s face. “I know, Genevieve,” she answered in careful, measured tones. “It’s barely been a few months for you, and Cullen forgets… well, he forgets that he needs time to ease into this, too. He just wants to plow forward and damn the consequences.” 

The mental image of Cullen as a battering ram sprang forward and Genevieve laughed brightly again. This time, she didn’t worry that it would offend Hayden. “I guess that I—I’ve got a little something of that, too.”

As they came to a residential corner, Hayden slowed to a stop and tilted her head to the left. “This is me.” 

Genevieve jammed her hands into her pockets. Unexpected though it had been, she was actually _glad_ to have run into Hayden. She tried for a smile, which Hayden returned with all the warmth and kindness she might have dreamed of from her birth mother for all those years. 

“Thanks for the chat,” she said awkwardly. 

“Of course.” Hayden paused, as if something had just dawned on her. “If you’d like, Sophia and I are planning to go to the beach this weekend. Just the two of us, a couple of sandwiches, and a shave ice to split. We’d love to have you for that, if it’s not too much.” 

Genevieve nodded immediately, struck by the memory of beach days with her parents—her other parents. “I think that’ll be great.” Her voice was thick and her tongue seemed to swell in her mouth. Genevieve waved one last goodbye to Hayden and hurried back down the boulevard toward her apartment, trying not to think too hard about what it might mean.

*

“You agreed to what?” Krem stopped to look over his shoulder, the key to Ostburn Tower resting in his palm. The building had been severely damaged in the fire, but an absence of structural damage made it safe to carry out a routine investigation, and that the building would be overhauled and sold, in time.

Genevieve shrugged, adjusting her bag onto her hip so it would be easier to retrieve her camera when she needed to take pictures. “Just a trip to the beach. I barely know Hayden and I’ve never met Sophia.”

Krem slid the key into the door and turned, frowning when the lock mechanism didn’t move. He gave the doorknob a wiggle and it swung open easily. Shrugging, he returned the key to his pocket and peered into the dark with a pinched expression. Even from a few steps away, Genevieve could smell ash and smoke. Her eyes watered and she pulled her shirt over her nose when she stepped through.

“It smells awful in here,” she said flatly. 

“It’ll get a little better when we get past the initial burn zone.” Krem nodded to her camera and Genevieve flipped off the cap and started shooting. She took her time, sidestepping debris on the floor. Even if the investigation turned up fruitless, it was nice to get out from behind her desk. With Krem, no less.

“Don’t you think that’s a big step?” Krem’s voice interrupted Genevieve’s thoughts, and she looked up from her camera. Her eyebrows jumped as she realized he was was continuing their conversation.

Genevieve shrugged it off. “It’s not like I’m moving in and we’re all living happily ever after. We’re just… it’s like dating. Trying it out, see where it goes. Back off if it gets to be too—too much.”

“Except they’re your birth parents and not someone you met up at the Rest on Friday night.” Krem peered out a window, following patterns of soot on the floor toward the corner electrical panel, which had blown out in the fire. 

“Except that, yeah.” Genevieve lowered her camera and watched him work. Krem didn’t look up once as he turned and slowly walked backward toward the wall. He turned and pointed to an portion that was burnt blacker than the rest. 

“Try and get some photos of this,” he said, dusting soot off his hands. “Honestly, it doesn’t look much like arson. Bad electrical paneling, sue the electricians or the builders or whoever.” 

Genevieve shrugged and took the requested pictures, following Krem through the rest of the floor and on upstairs to the other damaged areas. Genevieve didn’t say much else about her family, but she did watch Krem move with a sort of powerful grace she’d taken notice of much more over the last few months since she’d come home and taken the investigations job with the Chargers. She didn’t let herself linger on those thoughts for long. They were best saved for when she was home, alone, and not in any danger of betraying herself.

“I think this is going to be a quick one,” she said out loud, in a voice that she hoped sounded suitably casual. “A shame.”

Krem peeped up at her with a slow-burning grin on his face. “What? Are you disappointed this isn’t a sordid murder of passion or something?”

“Well, it’s better than staying in the office all the time.” Genevieve crouched on the ground and took a few last pictures of the ground nearby. “We don’t get to work together much.” 

“We could hang out outside of work again, you know.” He elbowed her playfully, laughing when Genevieve swatted back. “You don’t need an excuse, G.” 

“I’m not making excuses!” Genevieve stood up straight and gave Krem another swat, but she was grinning. “If _you_ want to hang out after work sometime, that’s another thing.” 

Krem lead her back out of the building, still chortling softly when he turned the key to relock the door. The bolt slipped into place this time and he shrugged at Genevieve. 

“Tell you what,” he suggested, pocketing the key. “Go on your play date with Hayden and Sophia and we’ll catch a few waves while you fill me in.”

“It’s a date.” The words slipped out automatically and Genevieve regretted them, a hot flush creeping down her neck and over her chest while she swallowed convulsively. “I mean,” she added rashly, “whatever.”

The curious expression Krem shot her would take up days of her time as she tried to decode it, but Genevieve merely turned away and shouldered her camera bag once again. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes just yet, not until the scarlet flush all over her skin faded away. This used to be _easier_ for her, before she developed a persisting and ill-timed crush on one of her oldest friends. 

“I’ll take a look at what we got inside the building,” she said when they came up to the intersection where they’d split up and go home. Luckily, most of her blush had dissipated and it wasn’t so difficult to force herself to look at Krem again. He seemed at ease with her, completely unchanged. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her fumbling before. 

Krem waved, jerking his chin up in a final parting gesture. “I’ll take care of the paperwork for the chief, then. Let me know what Revas found.” His liquid brown eyes softened a little. “Catch you back at HQ, Genevieve.” 

Then he was gone. Genevieve was left staring at the empty space he’d left behind, feeling peculiarly disappointed at his absence.

*

There was a note from Revas on Genevieve’s desk when she came in the following morning, which read simply: _Found something. —R_

Genevieve didn’t have a free moment all morning, though, and so it wasn’t until her stomach growled and the clock suggested it was already a quarter past noon that she remembered that Revas might be waiting for her. She seized an apple from a fruit basket left in the break room and headed over to the cyber division. 

Revas seemed to be expecting her this time. Her glasses were perched on her nose and she tapped a rhythm into her keyboard until Genevieve appeared at the door. Then, she looked up at the young detective with a distinctively warm smile and finished her typing with a small flourish. 

“Ah, Genevieve,” she greeted, sliding her glasses from her face. “How did the trip to Ostburn tower go?”

“Unproductive,” Genevieve answered flatly, though she didn’t know whether she was talking about the case, or a resolution to her awkward feelings about Krem.

“I see.” Revas seemed to grasp the dual meaning of her statement, but she didn’t press. Not immediately, anyway. She might like to learn more about what was happening, and she often did learn what she wanted to know, but Revas wasn’t a prying individual. For her part, Genevieve rather appreciated that attribute. 

“You said you found something?” Genevieve asked hopefully. A break in the case, maybe something that suggested it wasn’t as straightforward as the trip to Ostburn Tower made it seem. 

“Yes,” Revas answered, flipping through the papers on her desk. “I’ll send you an electronic version, but here’s a paper copy to take a look at now. Maeve Frank—our beneficiary to the policy in question—didn’t own a lot of assets on her own, separate from her husband. Ostburn Tower was one of her own, and she has a couple of apartment buildings here and there. Gordon, her husband, was a pretty big investor in a lot of smaller businesses, though. At least, that’s how it looks on paper.”

Genevieve leaned forward, her eyes lighting, but Revas continued with a shrug. “Well, probably it’s nothing, but when I ran some quick cross searches, I turned up a missing person’s report for one of the employees listed at one of his companies.”

“Someone else is dead?” Genevieve’s eyes widened, and she flipped rapidly through the short stack of papers in her hands. “That would be—”

“I don’t know about _dead_ yet,” Revas corrected her carefully. “But I did a little bit of other looking. The paperwork filed on Gordon Frank’s companies is minimal. Doesn’t always make sense if you look too closely at them. Besides those papers on file with the government, there’s no sign that those companies exist. No website, hardly a single hit when I search for them.”

A light shone in Genevieve’s mind and she sat up. “A shell company.”

“All of them,” Revas confirmed grimly. “Rather, those that Gordon Frank owned on his own. The companies he owned with Maeve were legitimate, and those seem to be the ones making money. _Officially_ , of course.”

Genevieve sat back in the chair, her back slouching down the cushion as she read as fast as her eyes would allow. “You’re amazing,” she breathed, then repeated the words over and over as she picked her way through the document. “You said you could send this to me?”

“Of course.” Revas tapped on her keyboard for a moment and then looked back at Genevieve. “So, not much productivity with Krem?”

Genevieve’s eyes shot to the open door, but she didn’t think anyone might come by. The rushing noise of the air conditioning system certainly did wonders in masking other, yet more sensitive conversations. 

“How do you know about that?” Genevieve hissed as soon as she leaned forward, her voice low. “I haven’t said a word to anyone.”

The expression Revas gave her wasn’t pitying, but it was somewhat amused. “Everyone knows about that, Genevieve. It’s been obvious since—well, for as long as I’ve known you.” She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back with the same fond smile from before. 

Genevieve spluttered over her words, then fell back into her chair, defeated. “Not much,” she admitted grudgingly, adding defiantly, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“No one does, Genevieve,” Revas confided, but if that was all she had to say, she didn’t make any move to return to her work. After a beat had passed, she offered Genevieve a reassuring smile. “At least, I don’t, either. There’s no right or wrong way to do something, and I’ve been seeing Solas for… months now. I don’t always know what it is he expects. You make mistakes, and sometimes you get it right, and you stagger along until you get it right.” 

Though Genevieve knew that Revas was seeing someone, she’d never mentioned him directly before, and Genevieve certainly hadn’t known his name. She cocked her head to the side and listened, but Revas made no move to continue for a moment. Her mouth had a pensive twist to it, her eyes looking down at her hands.

“You’ll get it right with Krem, too,” she assured. “He’s wild for you, everyone knows it.” Then her demeanor changed abruptly, lifting and brightening when her eyes swept past Genevieve’s head and to the hallway beyond.

“Is something—?” Genevieve swivelled her head around just in time to see a tall, thin man with a bald head and sharp eyes appear in the doorway to Revas’ office. Her lips glued together when he seemed to hesitate before acquiescing to the inviting gesture Revas made with her hand. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said very politely. “I did not mean to interrupt you, Revas.”

“Oh,” Genevieve said quietly, looking between the two of them. The man’s eyes never quite rested on her, so fixed were they on Revas, who was halfway standing behind her desk. Solas, she decided, with an uncanny ability to arrive as if he’d been summoned by invocation. Genevieve looked back to Revas, who seemed not nervous, but certainly a little flustered.

“Oh, it’s—Genevieve, we were finishing?”

“Um,” she answered blankly, but still the man did not look at her. “Yeah.”

“This is Solas,” Revas explained suddenly, without any other explanation. But the way he looked over at her seemed to suggest something rather more than a surprise visitor with no particular meaningfulness to her. 

“A pleasure.” A rotely memorized pleasantry escaped Genevieve’s mouth before she could stop it. “I’ll be on my way, Revas.”

“Yes, of course.” Revas seemed to be distracted again, but she was at her feet now, and coming around the desk to greet Solas. He did not pause much to look at Genevieve, and she had the unmistakeable impression that she was being dismissed. 

She disappeared out into the hallway with a single backward glance out of sheer curiosity. Solas stood next to the desk, with one hand rested on the surface as he spoke with a solemn expression. Genevieve wondered if that was what love was meant to look like, if Revas was even in love with Solas, and realized she hadn’t asked. She hummed at herself, irritated with herself, and then continued back toward her own desk.

*

Genevieve met Hayden at the boardwalk, just before the bridge that crossed over the dunes to the beach. She wore her bikini under a pair of shorts and a tank she’d probably borrowed from Krem. That had been before she’d become too nervous to let herself be alone around him, lest he find out that she was helplessly in love with him. Now it was more or less hers.

Hayden waved at her with one hand, her other holding the hand of a small girl, perhaps five or six, with riotous red-blonde curls and enormous golden eyes. Genevieve recognized herself immediately in her younger sister, and was arrested by the startling similarities. 

“Genevieve,” Hayden called as she came within earshot. She sounded a little like she hadn’t expected her to really come. Genevieve somewhat regretted that she had, feeling awkward and nervous as she came closer, shifting her beach bag onto her left shoulder from the right. 

“Hi,” she said, looking between Hayden and the girl, Sophia. Genevieve didn’t know what to say, but Hayden seemed to pick up the distance between them immediately, turning her attention down to the little girl, who seemed equally shy as she turned her face toward the ground. 

“Sophia,” Hayden said patiently. “This is Genevieve.”

“My sister,” Sophia said, her voice muffled, but she peeped over her shoulder at Genevieve, curiosity plainly winning out over her shyness. “You told me.”

“That’s right,” Hayden continued, looking up to Genevieve, who tried to smile. 

She was surprised that it came easily to her face. Without hesitating, not wanting to alarm Sophia any more than she clearly already was, Genevieve offered her hand. She could give Sophia the choice, as she was choosing. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said, as if this were not so momentous as it really was. 

Sophia rested her hand in Genevieve’s for a few seconds, and then pulled back to tug at Hayden’s shirt. “We’re going to the ocean, right?”

“Right,” Hayden said, straightening her back and looking between her two daughters. Her expression tried to stay neutral, but the urgent look in her eyes struck Genevieve. It hadn’t really occurred to her how important this might be to Hayden, that it might be equally momentous to her as for Genevieve. 

She straightened and held a hand out to Sophia again, an invitation. “I love the beach,” she told the girl, and Sophia seemed to brighten. She bounced forward and slipped her hand into Genevieve’s, pulling her toward the bridge impatiently. Genevieve managed only one quick look back at Hayden, her heart thudding meaningfully in her chest, before she was dragged toward the water. 

Hayden shouted from behind for Sophia to take off her outer garments before they were wet, but it was too late. They romped through the water a few scant seconds after Genevieve dropped her bag in the sand. Genevieve’s jean shorts soaking through before she could remove her clothing, either. After a few seconds, Sophia splurted water from her mouth with a disgusted expression and slogged herself back to shore, peeling her shirt off to reveal a bright red bathing suit not at all unlike Genevieve’s own bikini. 

They left their clothes on the towels to dry, and Genevieve stepped out of her sandals, wincing when the hot sand burned her toes. Hayden took her time to set up the towels for herself and Sophia, waving them back to the water to play. Sophia led Genevieve on a merry chase through the water. The girl swam like a fish, and she tired slowly, but after an hour, she was ready for more sedate play. 

When they returned, Genevieve’s anxiety about the afternoon had largely dissipated. It was gone completely when Hayden passed water to both of them. Sophia planted herself in the sand and pulled wide armfuls of it toward herself. 

“Help me build a castle,” she instructed Genevieve imperiously, digging her small hands into the sand. And so, Genevieve did, hauling little buckets of water from the surf until Sophia became impatient and began to do the same. Together, the two stranger-sisters worked. Sophia was not especially chatty, and so Genevieve filled the silence with stories and answers to questions that Sophia would periodically interject. Where she’d grown up, who her parents were, why she’d chosen to be a private investigator rather than a police officer. 

“It’s the family business,” Sophia announced with the confidence of someone quoting something she’d heard before. “Anyway, that’s what Papa says, and he’s a police captain.” Her eyes flickered up toward Genevieve’s, whose hands stilled over a bucket of wet sand forming one of the northern towers of their castle. “Did you know that?”

“I knew Cullen—your—our dad.” Genevieve tripped over the words, glancing back at Hayden for help. What was she supposed to say about Cullen? It was too strange to refer to him or Hayden as her parents, when the Trevelyans were in every conceivable way still her parents, but it wasn’t as if she could deny their relationship. Not to Sophia, and not when she was trying so hard to have a relationship with them, whatever it turned out to be. She had already begun to think of Hayden as, if not her mother, or her friend, then as a comforting confidante. 

“Our dad,” Sophia answered casually, as though it were really so simple as that. All her previous shyness had already disappeared. 

“I knew him,” Genevieve continued, with a small breath of relief to be past that confusing hurdle. “When I was in school, I worked as an intern at the police department. It helped me get the job I have now. That, and my photography.”

Hayden lay out beside them with a book over her knees, watching the two of them with a distinctly fond, if also wistful expression. She said nothing, and Genevieve returned to the sand castle. When the main towers, turrets, and walls were built, Sophia instructed her to find shells to decorate them. Small, pretty, and pink, if possible. Genevieve complied. 

Though she needed to walk along the surf for the requested shells, she did not go far. Hayden was bent over, listening to Sophia for a moment, and Genevieve felt a wistful stab of her own. It wasn’t as if she could entertain the fantasy that this is what her life would have been like if the Trevelyans hadn’t adopted her. If Cullen and Hayden hadn’t given her away. It would have been harder, she had no illusions of that, and she had been given a more privileged childhood because of their decision. But to see Sophia, who would grow up without all of Genevieve’s warring emotions like smashed up glass in her chest, jagged and never whole, elicited another emotion entirely. 

Genevieve huffed and crouched down to pick up a whole shell, delicate and peach-pink in hue. She held it up to the light and realized that it was already late afternoon, and that time had passed quickly. She hurried back to help Sophia finish their castle, and when she came back, Hayden held out a hand for some of the shells with a faint smile.

“I’ve been castigated for failing to help with the family castle,” she explained, looking along the walls before she chose just the place she wanted to place her sea-worn pebble. 

“Next time you’ll know better,” Genevieve said automatically, as a joke, but Hayden’s eyes flew up, full of hope. She added quickly, “If you all want.” 

“I think we’d like that,” Hayden said carefully, looking down at Sophia. “What do you think, Sophia?”

“Yeah.” The girl didn’t look up, but she did bat Hayden’s hands to the side to keep her from placing a shell too close to another. 

“There you have it.” Hayden laughed as Sophia sat back to admire the completely decorated castle. “Sophia, go put your clothes back on. We’ll need to go start dinner soon.”

Sophia groaned, but she complied obediently, flashing a smile up at Genevieve as she dragged her feet through the sand. “Thanks.” 

Genevieve crouched down over her clothes again, pulling her shirt back over her head. Her shorts were still damp from the surf, and so she folded those up and dropped them back in her bag. It wasn’t a long walk back to her apartment, and it wouldn’t be strange for her to walk back in her bathing suit. 

Hayden hesitated with her hands on her bag, Sophia still flitting around her. She seemed to be thinking about something, making a decision, but the indecision only lasted a moment. 

“You’re welcome over for dinner,” she said lightly, plainly trying to keep from alarming Genevieve. But dinner didn’t seem too overwhelming, the way it had been when Cullen emailed her about it. “Maybe not tonight, you’ll want to go get some rest. Sophia can be exhausting.”

“She was great,” Genevieve cut in eagerly, afraid to let Hayden think that she hadn’t enjoyed herself. More frightened that she might rescind the invitation, whenever she might be brave enough to accept it. “Dinner would be great some—sometime.”

“How about Thursday?” Hayden shouldered her bag and Genevieve mirrored the action, if only to quit twisting the strap around her hands. 

“Thursday,” she echoed meaninglessly, then nodded. “Yeah, Thursday sounds good.”

“We’ll see you then.” Hayden’s shoulders seemed lighter than Genevieve had seen before, as if she’d been carrying all the same tension as Genevieve. Only Sophia seemed unaffected by all the emotional hubbub, accepting it completely. 

“Yeah. See you, Sophia.” Genevieve waved to them, and stood alone in the sand while they headed back toward the boardwalk before taking the longer way home along the beach, just so she might have more time to think as she walked.

*

“The fire had to be started by someone.” Krem’s voice carried around the corner of Genevieve’s cubicle before he appeared at the entrance, before she could turn to look up at him.

When she did, he was holding a stack of shiny photographs, copies of the ones she’d taken on their trip to the arson site.

Genevieve lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and stared expectantly up at him. “Show your work,” she said.

Krem tipped his head toward one of the empty conference rooms, indicating she should follow him. She grabbed up her notepad and shoved a pen through her hair behind her ear, but she did follow him. When she stepped through the doorway and toward the table, Krem kicked the door shut with the back of his foot and laid out his pictures, along with a sheet of white paper with an official looking report printed across it. 

“We don’t have the police interview tapes with Maeve Frank, and we assumed she was the suspicious party. That’s what the client thinks, anyway. So, we’ve been looking mostly at her accounts, her alibi. The usual.” 

“Okay.” Genevieve put her feet up on the table, crossed at the ankle, and nodded along as he spoke. “You think it’s not her? The lady who sees a whole lot of cash with her husband’s death and—well, it’s not hard to conclude…”

“I don’t know about her innocence, just that we’ve been chasing her trail and not her husband’s.” He waved the piece of paper at her. “You were out on another case this morning, so Revas dropped by my desk. She said she just got a hunch that maybe there was something else missing. Gordon Frank fired his executive assistant a couple weeks before he died in the fire. Alone, on a Sunday morning, when no one might have thought anyone was in the building.” 

Genevieve sat up and grabbed the paper out of his hand, her heart racing. She scanned the page quickly, but she was disappointed to see it was a missing persons report. Confused, she looked back up at him with her mouth turned down. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, if you’d let me finish,” Krem grinned, pacing toward the window and back to her. “Anyway, Ana Threste—the missing person from that report—was Gordon Frank’s assistant. She disappeared a day before the fire.” 

“Not as clear cut as we thought,” Genevieve said slowly, and then she jumped to her feet so she could look down at Krem’s pictures. “Maybe she started the fire and is hiding out.”

“Or maybe she was sleeping with her boss, and Maeve Frank found out and asked her husband to fire his mistress.” Krem’s voice was heavy and thoughtful, and Genevieve had the impression he didn’t think that was what he thought had happened.

“We don’t know,” he added insistently. “But I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” 

Genevieve bent over the pictures, her brow furrowed as she searched over them. “We didn’t see any evidence that the fire was started by anyone, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t.” She pushed a picture to the side to look at the next, scanning them for any sign of something missed. She found nothing immediately apparent, and wished she could just be there again, walking the room. If it were deliberate, it would prove that Gordon Frank’s death was no accident, that…

“I need to get back into the building,” she announced insistently. “Can we get in?” 

Krem’s face broke into a grin. “Sure,” he said, digging his hand into his pocket and holding up the key he’d used the last time they’d gone. “I hoped you’d see it my way.” 

Genevieve smacked the back of her hand against his shoulder as she walked toward the door, grinning broadly. “You knew I’d want to go immediately.”

“Played you like a fiddle.” Krem scooped up the papers and tipped his head toward his desk. “I’m going to grab my stuff. See you out front?” 

She grabbed up her camera bag, abandoned her coffee on her desk, and jogged to the door. Krem was already waiting out front with a helmet under his arm and another held out for her. 

“The bike will be faster,” he said cheerily when she took it from him. Genevieve brightened immediately. She’d never been out on his motorcycle. 

The elated feeling didn’t quite dissipate, even when her stomach turned uncomfortably through the whole ride. Krem took corners alarmingly short, and though her heart hammered with excitement, she held him around the middle tighter, closing her hands around his t-shirt so she didn’t succumb to gravity and go tumbling off the bike and into the street. When he came to a sharp stop a block from Ostburn Tower, Genevieve staggered to her feet and pulled off her helmet.

“That was awesome,” she enthused, tucking the helmet under her arm while he rocked the bike up onto its stand. 

“Thought you’d like it.” Krem grinned at her, and suddenly it wasn’t adrenaline that made her heart flip-flop in her chest. Genevieve crushed down the feeling and blushed, leading him toward the building. 

“Just don’t tell your dad about it,” he added, jogging after her. He paused to think for a second, then added, “Either of them.”

Genevieve wrinkled her nose. “I’m an adult now. I don’t need them worrying about me all the time.” 

Krem shrugged, but he didn’t press the issue, though he clearly had questions he wanted to ask her. Finally, after he’d unlocked the back entrance to the tower, away from the burned side of the building, he seemed fit to burst with all his questions.

“I wondered how it went with Hayden and your sister.” His eyebrows rose meaningfully, and Genevieve remembered that he was her best friend beyond her relatively newfound crush on him. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t brought it up. 

“It was… good,” she said cautiously. “It was good. I don’t think Sophia is all that confused about having a new sister. For her, it’s like as if Hayden and Cullen told her they were having another baby, only…”

“Only twenty-three years ago?” 

“Yeah,” she said with a frown, trying to decide how it made her feel. Despite her long walk the other day, Genevieve hadn’t figured out what it was she was really feeling about this. Instead of examining it to any real depth, she only buried herself in work, and in this case. Genevieve crossed her arms automatically and puffed out a breath.

“I don’t know, Krem,” she sighed finally. “I wanted to meet my birth parents. I wanted to have a relationship with them, but as soon as I found out who they were, something just closed up inside me and I’m not ready anymore. But I am, if that makes sense. Mom and Dad—Bann and Evanna, I guess—have been really great about all this, but it still feels wrong to come to them to talk about it. Does that even make sense?”

Now that the words were out, Genevieve felt lighter, if also anxious for Krem’s response. He only hummed at first, leading her up the stairs to the floor where Gordon Frank’s office had been. Where he’d died.

“I get it,” Krem said when he pushed the door open and held it for her. His brow was wrinkled in center, the way it did when he was thinking seriously about something. “I remember when you first decided you wanted to meet them, and I thought… well, doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s not like you can have the same kind of relationship with Cullen as you do with Bann, right? And Hayden’s your birth mom, but you can’t go back in time so she can read you bedtime stories, or give you ice cream when you had your tonsils out.”

Genevieve hadn’t really thought much about it that way. All this time, she’d been thinking about the things they’d missed out on, the things she couldn’t ever have with them. “You’re right,” she admitted a little grudgingly. “I mean, it’s obvious now, but I still…”

“Want to have a perfect family relationship with your perfect little normal family unit?” Krem’s eyes danced, but she didn’t miss the well-masked pain there, too. “I know how that feels.” 

Krem’s dad had died years before, when he’d still been young. And though his mother hadn’t been troubled by his transition, his other relations, aunts and uncles and all the other family who’d helped raise him in his father’s absence, hadn’t taken it as well. Genevieve knew that those losses still gnawed at him. 

She lowered her eyes. “I’ve been kind of self-absorbed about this.” Her eyes jumped back up when Krem elbowed her gently and grinned.

“Hey, that’s what I’m here for, yeah? Thick and thin, as long as we both—” He broke off with an embarrassed cough, and then nodded to the office door, changing the subject abruptly. “Hey, this is it.” 

Krem went through the doorway while Genevieve hung back to take out her camera and temper the renewed flush on her cheeks. Maybe Revas had been right after all. Not that Genevieve had any idea what she might do about it if Krem really _did_ harbor something like her own feelings.

“It doesn’t look much different,” she said slowly, entering the room with her camera ready and loose in her hands. Though, she thought belatedly, the police had already combed through the building for their own investigation. But they’d missed something. 

Genevieve rested her closed fists on her hips and walked the perimeter of the room. She paused when she came to one corner, less blackened than the others. The carpet in Gordon Frank’s office had been a deep burgundy before the fire, but there was a stain here, a slight discoloration that didn’t match the burns in the rest of the carpet. She lifted her camera and photographed it quickly before crouching down to touch the carpet. The carpet under the stain was stiff, but something dark red flaked off when Genevieve ran her fingers over it.

“Krem,” she called lowly, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. “Gordon Frank didn’t have any blunt force trauma—no open wounds on the body, right?”

“No. Why?” Krem stood at the scorched filing cabinets behind Gordon Frank’s desk, sifting through what Genevieve assumed were personnel files. If Ana Threste had been fired, there might be a hint about why in the files, what role her disappearance might have played in the fire. Genevieve had sickening idea what might have happened to her. 

She stood up quickly. “There’s blood here,” she said shortly. “I’m sure it’s blood.” 

Krem’s body gave a short jerk, but he turned and came toward her quickly, looking down at the stain with a bewildered expression. 

“I’ll be damned,” he mumbled, mimicking Genevieve’s motions as he touched the bloodstain. “How did the police miss this when they were in here investigating?”

“No reason to look for it,” she suggested with a short shrug. “There wasn’t another body.”

They’d have to call the police now, the case might need to be reopened. The insurance investigation would have to be put on hold. These things occurred to Genevieve in an abstract sense, but she was mostly nauseated thinking about someone dying where she stood just then. As large as the stain was, as deep as it must have seeped into the carpet, she couldn’t imagine someone would have survived it. 

Krem swore under his breath and stood up. “Call the chief,” he instructed, tipping his head up toward the ceiling with his hands on his hips. “Then the police. We’ll have to turn everything over to them. _Fuck._ Chief’s not going to be happy.”

“He’d rather play by the book,” Genevieve pointed out, but she backed out of the corner of the room, retreating back toward the door. “Come on. This gives me the willies.” 

Krem took the lead as they left the office and entered the stairwell. Genevieve packed up her camera absently as she trudged down the stairs, her sandals slapping against her feet. She didn’t know what made her stop abruptly, whether it was the faintly acrid scent in the air, sharper than the lingering smell of the fire, or if it was a far off _whoosh_.

“Krem, stop.” Her hand flew out to catch his elbow and the cap for her camera lens bounced twice before rolling away from them. His hand was extended toward the door handle, but he complied immediately. 

Genevieve reached out for the door handle, but pulled back quickly when she felt searing heat emanating from it. “It’s hot,” she said, turning away from it and staring up at him. Panic shot through her chest, but Genevieve struggled to keep it contained. She knew fires could restart, even a few days after the original fire, but it had been weeks, the electricity was shut off for the building, and there was no chance it could have spontaneously started up again. She didn’t dare open the door, knew that was the wrong thing to do, but she couldn’t remember if there was another way out of the building. 

“Is there another way out?” For all her control, Genevieve heard the note of alarm in her voice and saw Krem stiffen in response to it. 

“Back up the stairs,” he said, taking them two at a time, pulling at Genevieve’s arm. She followed, her camera slapping against her side as she darted up at Krem’s side. When they emerged onto the landing, she darted forward and slapped the door open with both her hands and walked quickly through the halls to the west side of the building.

“Someone’s out there,” Krem called, a few paces behind her. He stood at the window, staring out at the parking lot. Genevieve followed, swallowing the lump in her throat when she saw a man in an unseasonable jacket standing nearby, watching the door they’d come in through with a particularly intense stare. One of his hands was jammed into a pocket, but the other was hidden under his jacket. He looked as though he were waiting for something. For them. 

“Let’s go,” she said quickly, breaking away from the window and running for the next door, holding her hand over the doorknob before she touched it. It was cool, and so she jerked the door open and started running again. The western stairwell was clear of smoke, and so Genevieve and Krem hammered down the stairs. The door at the bottom was warm, but not hot. Exchanging only a silent, panicked expression with Krem, Genevieve shoved it open. 

Smoke poured through the open passage and rose through the stairwell. Genevieve choked on it, pulling her tank over her mouth and nose while her eyes watered mercilessly. Beside her, Krem doubled over in coughing, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him through. The fire had only just made it to the western side of the building from the east, but it chewed through the walls at an alarming pace. How long had they been in the building, and how long had it been since the fire had been set?

Genevieve could see the exterior door ahead of them, but it was slow progress through the room, keeping her face covered. Somewhat taller than she, Krem had to duck to avoid the thicker smoke that clustered toward the low, drop ceilings. Fire crept along the dry ceiling tiles, burning through them faster than they could move. 

Krem slowed beside her, succumbing to a violent coughing fit that left him doubled over. 

“Come on!” Genevieve shouted, and regretted the effort immediately, for she took in a deep lungful of smoke that left her coughing convulsively beside him. But while she recovered, Krem was bent forward and not moving. She didn’t think twice. Genevieve crouched low, pulling Krem over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and willed herself to walk faster. Krem was heavy, and his squirming attempts to keep from burdening her only made it harder to walk. 

Finally, as the fire reached the ceiling tiles over their heads, Genevieve fumbled with the latch on the door with a hand covered by her shirt, and then kicked it open with one well-aimed strike. 

She fell to her knees some fifteen feet from the doorway, greedily sucking in breaths of fresh air. Krem rolled from her shoulders and lay on his back for only an instant before curling around himself to cough. Somewhere very near, Genevieve heard the shrill rise of sirens moving toward them, and collapsed into the pavement.

*

Genevieve woke to an unfamiliar ceiling pattern above her. It was starkly white and smooth, and she didn’t know where she was. At least, until she blinked a few times and recognized the bland furniture and sterile smell of Ostwick Memorial Hospital. She groaned and sat up.

“I suppose you simply _forgot_ that investigators are supposed to clear field trips with their superiors.” Bull’s voice came from beside her, much closer than Genevieve expected. Even when she turned toward him sharply, it surprised her to see his massive bulk squeezed into the chair at her bedside. 

“Sorry, Chief,” she croaked weakly, her voice completely gone. It was true: neither she nor Krem had even paused to tell anyone where they were going. Still, someone must have told Bull about it. 

“That’s what Krem said, too.” Bull shook his head, but for all he was acting the part of their hardass boss, his very presence was testament to his concern for her. “Captain Rutherford is beside himself.” 

“Saw the guy who started the—the fire.” Genevieve looked around the room as her voice broke, but Bull pushed a cup of water toward her. She took it gratefully and drank deeply. Her throat hurt abominably, but her head was clearing and she needed to talk. “There was blood up in the office. I took pictures.”

“At least there’s that. They won’t be getting any other evidence against their guy.” Bull sat back in his chair and steepled his hands. “They caught him, by the way. Ostburn Tower is structurally unsound, though. Fire took the whole fucking first floor. Fire department’s over there now, in case the damn thing comes down.”

His remaining eye glinted with something Genevieve couldn’t read, but Bull continued. “And you and Krem, right in the middle of it.”

She looked down at the warm hospital blankets tucked around her. “I didn’t know.”

“You’ll have to tell that to the Captain,” he said, standing up out of the too-small chair. “He’s going to want to question you next. Case is open again, something about a drug ring they’re calling _Venatori_. Not a damn thing we can do for the insurance investigation now.” Bull made a disgusted noise deep in his throat, like he wanted to spit. 

“I said I was sorry, Chief.”

“It’s already done.” He held up one massive hand, pausing on his way to the door. “Not another word about it. I’d rather lose the paycheck than either of the two of you. Besides, it sounds like the police department wants to hire us on as consultants, or something like that.” He winked at her and opened the door to her room. “I’ll tell Cullen to go easy on you.”

But if Bull tried to persuade Cullen to go easy on Genevieve, it didn’t show. His first warning about Cullen’s temperament held true when the man stalked into the room, his eyes alight with the ill-contained fury that broke over her like the rushing tide. 

“What the _devil_ do you think you were doing in there? You could have died. You _should_ have died.” His voice rose with each word, until he was shouting. Anger sparked in Genevieve’s chest, and she stiffened her back, sitting up as straight as she could in her hospital bed. 

“I was doing my job, _Captain,_ ” she said indignantly. His unprofessional demeanor burned at her, when this should have been a perfectly routine interview with a witness—or a victim, depending how the investigation turned out. “And because of it, I have _evidence_ and eye-witness accounts that can help you identify the man who did this.”

“You were reckless! Careless!” Cullen paced at the end of her bed, his hands gesturing furiously. “I talked to Krem and he told me what you did. There are a _thousand_ things you handled wrong in there.” 

“I’m not your daughter,” Genevieve snapped, adding hastily, “or one of your cadets. Maeve Frank didn’t kill Gordon Frank, but _someone did._ ”

Something of that statement pulled Cullen back to himself. He stood at the end of her bed with a stony expression. “Of course Maeve Frank didn’t kill her husband,” he said, as if that were the only thing he could think to address. “She had a solid alibi all along, as she was in Markham conducting an affair of her own.”

Genevieve felt her heart sink into her stomach. She’d been so sure she was onto something, that she could solve a big case. The disappointment over the police taking over their case was nothing compared to the disappointment that she’d been too slow to figure it out. Her eyes dropped back to the coverlet. 

“You should be able to help us identify the man who started the fire tonight,” Cullen conceded carefully, but Genevieve could see that he was still hurt by her words. She wished she could just take them back. She hadn’t meant to be so harsh with him. 

He seemed to relax, walking toward her bedside with an unreadable expression. 

“We know a lot more about this case and the late Gordon Frank because of the work you did, Genevieve,” he offered, albeit a little awkwardly. “We’ve been tracking the drug ring he was involved in for almost a year. We knew he was involved with the Venatori, and we suspected that the Tower was the site of some significant activity for that group, but we couldn’t prove his death was anything but an accident. And we had a hunch about Ana Threste’s disappearance, but there was nothing to support _that_ either.”

Genevieve’s throat seemed to unstick, just in time to cross her arms over her chest and interject. “Until now.”

“Until now.” Cullen pressed his lips together but his expression didn’t return to the same, stony one as before. It stayed passive, if also awkward. Genevieve tried to harden her expression and stare him down. She was just about to add to it, to say something to force him to acknowledge that she’d given him the evidence he needed, but the door swung open again and Hayden burst in, flustered and red-faced. 

“Genevieve!” Her voice rose when she saw her, but she relaxed when she saw her. Genevieve gave her a weak wave, but her attention turned to Cullen almost immediately. “Are you interrogating her?” 

“It’s not like—” Cullen started to speak, but Hayden made a sharp motion with her hand, gesturing for him to leave. He shot one last look over his shoulder at Genevieve and her chest constricted as she realized that she didn’t know what he might say. 

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said finally, his voice cracking over the words, and then he left, closing the door behind him. 

Hayden stood alone at the foot of Genevieve’s bed with a relieved smile. “He’s worried,” she said, coming around to stand nearer to Genevieve’s side. 

Genevieve was calmed by this, and she fell back against her pillows, all her bravado fading. “I know he is,” she said weakly. “When do I go home?” 

“Your mom and dad are on their way,” Hayden answered quietly, twisting her hands around. “The Trevelyans. Your—your parents.” She seemed to falter around the words, but pushed them out finally. “I talked to your doctors. They said you just needed a little time to recover from the smoke inhalation.”

“Do you know about Krem? If he’s okay?” She couldn’t hide her eager concern, but Hayden shook her head. 

“I just came to rescue you from Cullen,” she admitted, and suddenly she couldn’t seem to restrain herself. Hayden bent down and hugged Genevieve hard. Genevieve paused, and then she returned the hug with a weak smile. She tried to think about what Krem had told her, that her relationship with Hayden and Cullen might not look different than she expected. 

“Thanks,” Genevieve murmured as Hayden drew away. 

“I’ll let you get some rest,” Hayden offered. “Sophia heard you weren’t feeling well. If you don’t mind—”

“I’ll come see her,” Genevieve promised, and was surprised to find that she meant it. That she was looking forward to it, to reassuring her sister that she was safe and otherwise unharmed. She sat back and watched Hayden collect herself and head for the door. 

“Are we still on for Thursday?” she blurted out, just before Hayden opened the door to her room. 

“We’ll be there,” Hayden answered, her expression softening with hope just before she slipped out of the door. 

Different, Genevieve reminded herself, thinking of what Krem said to her. It would be different than what she had with her parents, but it could be something equally important, if she worked at it. 

In the meantime, she decided, reaching for the robe draped nearby with the intent of going to see Krem himself, she had something else that was important, too. It only needed much more work than she’d given it until then.

*

“Well,” Krem said, leaning against the entrance to Genevieve’s cubicle, tugging a fresh shirt down and into place. It was a bit nicer than his usual wardrobe, Genevieve noted with a faintly pleased smile. “This all turned out well in the end.”

Genevieve rolled her eyes at him, but she swivelled her chair back to face Krem with an ironic smile. They’d both spent a single night in the hospital for smoke inhalation before they’d been allowed to go home, but she hadn’t wasted that night. They’d stayed up the whole night to talk, something Genevieve hadn’t thought possible before. Something about the shared experience of nearly dying, or the final revelation that the only thing that stood between them was themselves, seemed to have broken open all their feelings. The difficult thing, it seemed, would be figuring out how to live with all of that exposed. 

So far, it hadn’t been difficult. Not with Krem, at least, Genevieve thought. Maybe it would have been if it had been anyone else.

“You know there’s a bigger investigation open now,” she remarked, thinking of her meeting with the detectives leading the police investigation of the much larger threat they’d uncovered. 

Krem only grinned back at her and folded his arms. He was ready to go, was only waiting for her. “And these Venatori will do anything to anyone to protect their operation.” He didn’t seem too concerned, more like he was still giddy since their conversation in the hospital. Certainly Genevieve had been, herself, even if she wouldn’t let anyone see it. 

“Genevieve,” he finally added, his voice curling with evident warmth around the syllables of her name. “I’m not worried about it. And we’re going to be late to dinner.”

Dinner. Genevieve made herself pack her things and stand, but she was still irrationally nervous about something so easy as it. Hayden had promised that it would be a low-key event, that they’d eat exactly the sort of unassuming thing the family had any other Thursday night, and that nothing would be at all different from their usual schedule. This didn’t alarm Genevieve, but it didn’t make her feel completely comfortable yet, either. What if she didn’t belong in that normal routine of theirs? What if it felt strange, or alien to her? What if her relationship with them never turned out the way she hoped? 

She followed Krem to the street, her mouth a little dry as they walked in silence. The sun sank down the horizon, and the rosy hue of it reflected on the ocean, streaming across the wet sand. It was idyllic, a brief respite from the tumult of the past weeks. A pause before Genevieve would walk into another unknown part of her life. 

Genevieve reached out and took Krem’s hand, folding her own around his and pretending not to notice that he smiled. The walk to the house where Hayden and Cullen and Sophia lived didn’t feel like it was long enough for her, and when she paused a few paces from the front walk, Krem gave her hand an encouraging little squeeze.

“I don’t really know what to expect,” she confessed, trying to hide her timidity behind a casual tone. Genevieve knew she failed, but Krem knew her well enough, or was kind enough, not to comment on it.

“Hey,” he said, coaxing her along with a gentle tug, but Genevieve only bumped her chest against his, her face tinting red with heat. “I told you it’d be fine.” Then he bent forward and kissed her on the tip of her scrunched up nose, and gave her hand another pull. 

This time, Genevieve walked beside him up the walk, to the door, and she was not afraid.


End file.
